After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110727/09444715284Mon, 29 Feb 2016 17:00:00 PSTDailyDirt: Oil And Water Aren't Supposed To Mix...Michael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110311/01480813451/dailydirt-oil-water-arent-supposed-to-mix.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110311/01480813451/dailydirt-oil-water-arent-supposed-to-mix.shtmlXprize winner that came up with a better way to clean up an oil spill after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. We've also seen some patented but somewhat impractical oil-eating bacteria approaches to cleaning up oil spills. If you've ever wondered, why don't they just use magnets? Here you go, three different ways that could help recover oil from a spill on water.

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110316/01560813519Fri, 15 Jan 2016 17:00:00 PSTDailyDirt: Stop! Don't Eat That...Michael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110121/03514712763/dailydirt-stop-dont-eat-that.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110121/03514712763/dailydirt-stop-dont-eat-that.shtmlcompletely healthy diet is a totally different task. There are countless fad diets that don't really work or aren't as healthy as they're supposed to be. On top of all that, we should also keep an eye out for the outbreaks of foodborne illnesses and food safety recommendations. Maybe people who drink all their calories aren't totally crazy....

If you've been thinking about learning how to code, take a look at our Daily Deals for a collection of online courses to help you program and/or master some professional skills.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110121/03514712763Wed, 13 Jan 2016 17:00:00 PSTDailyDirt: Changing Our EnvironmentMichael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110223/02283313224/dailydirt-changing-our-environment.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110223/02283313224/dailydirt-changing-our-environment.shtmlcare about our legacy on the world. We haven't completely figured out what mark we've left on the Earth (or if it's permanent), but we've definitely changed some things, for better or worse.

If you've been thinking about learning how to code, take a look at our Daily Deals for a collection of online courses to help you program and/or master some professional skills.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110223/02283313224Wed, 11 Nov 2015 17:00:00 PSTDailyDirt: Fixing A Hole Where The Rain Gets In...Michael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110217/11173713155/dailydirt-fixing-hole-where-rain-gets.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110217/11173713155/dailydirt-fixing-hole-where-rain-gets.shtmlan expensive solution -- which, thankfully, billionaires like Bill Gates are willing to fund. However, we're already spending billions on energy R&D, but progress seems slow when the doomsday clock appears to be "catastrophically" close to midnight. The option of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere might give us some additional time, though, even if global-scale geoengineering sounds like it might have its own unintended side effects.

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110217/11173713155Mon, 28 Sep 2015 17:00:00 PDTDailyDirt: Pollution Put In Some PerspectiveMichael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101209/02390112203/dailydirt-pollution-put-some-perspective.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101209/02390112203/dailydirt-pollution-put-some-perspective.shtmlstories will be in the headlines for the foreseeable future. Optimistically, all the predictions of environmental catastrophes will be avoided by technology, but it's also technological developments that can bring about various ecological quandaries. When products are new and improved, they're not always an improvement to the environment. If you live near the Great Lakes, check out some of these ecological threats in your neck of the woods.

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101209/02390112203Thu, 6 Aug 2015 08:37:22 PDTInsanity Rules: NSA Apologists Actually Think Apple Protecting You & Your Data Could Be 'Material Support' For ISISMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150731/07081631810/insanity-rules-nsa-apologists-actually-think-apple-protecting-you-your-data-could-be-material-support-isis.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150731/07081631810/insanity-rules-nsa-apologists-actually-think-apple-protecting-you-your-data-could-be-material-support-isis.shtmlperhaps the most ridiculous statement of any Senator (and there were a lot of crazy statements) in the debate over encryption and the FBI's exaggerated fear of "going dark." He argued that if the police couldn't find a missing girl (using a hypothetical that not only didn't make any sense, but which also was entirely unlikely to ever happen), then perhaps Apple could face some civil liability for not allowing the government to spy on your data. Here's what he said:

It strikes me that one of the balances that we have in these circumstances, where a company may wish to privatize value -- by saying "gosh, we're secure now, we got a really good product, you're gonna love it" -- that's to their benefit. But for the family of the girl that disappeared in the van, that's a pretty big cost. And, when we see corporations privatizing value and socializing costs, so that other people have to bear the cost, one of the ways that we get back to that and try to put some balance into it, is through the civil courts. Through the liability system. If you're a polluter and you're dumping poisonous waste into the water rather than treating it properly somebody downstream can bring an action and can get damages for the harm they sustained, can get an order telling you to knock it off.

You can read our longer analysis of how wrong this is, but in short: encryption is not pollution. Pollution is a negative externality. Encryption is the opposite of that. It's a tool that better protects the public in the vast majority of cases. That's why Apple is making it so standard.

The suggestion was so ridiculous and so wrong that we were surprised that famed NSA apologist Ben Wittes of the Brookings Institute found Whitehouse's nonsensical rant "interesting" and worthy of consideration. While we disagree with Wittes on nearly everything, we thought at the very least common sense would have to eventually reach him, leading him to recognize that absolutely nothing Whitehouse said made any sense (then again, this is the same Wittes who seems to have joined the magic unicorn/golden key brigade -- so I'm beginning to doubt my initial assessment that Wittes is well-informed but just comes to bad conclusions).

However, even with Wittes finding Whitehouse's insane suggestion "interesting," it's still rather surprising to see him find it worthy of a multi-part detailed legal analysis for which he brought in a Harvard Law student, Zoe Bedell, to help. In the first analysis, they take a modified form of Whitehouse's hypothetical (after even they admit that his version doesn't actually make any sense), but still come to the conclusion that the company "could" face civil liability. Though, at least they admit plaintiffs would "not have an easy case."

The first challenge for plaintiffs will be to establish that Apple even had a duty, or an obligation, to take steps to prevent their products from being used in an attack in the first place. Plaintiffs might first argue that Apple actually already has a statutory duty to provide communications to government under a variety of laws. While Apple has no express statutory obligation to maintain the ability to provide decrypted information to the FBI, plaintiffs could argue that legal obligations it clearly does have would be meaningless if the communications remained encrypted.

To make this possible, Bedell and Wittes try to read into various wiretapping and surveillance laws a non-existent duty to decrypt information from your mobile phone. But that's clearly not true. If that actually existed, then we wouldn't be having this debate right now in the first place, and FBI Director James Comey wouldn't be talking to Congress about changing the law to require such things. But, still, they hope that maybe, just maybe, a court would create such a duty out of thin air based on things like "the foreseeability of the harm." Except, that's going to fall flat on its face, because the likelihood of harm here goes the other way. Not encrypting your information leads to a much, much, much greater probability of harm than encrypting your data and not allowing law enforcement to see it.

Going to even more ridiculous levels than the "pollution" argument, this article compares Apple encrypting your data to the potential liability of the guy who taught the Columbine shooters how to use their guns:

For example, after the Columbine shooting, the parents of a victim sued the retailer who sold the shooters one of their shotguns and even taught the shooters how to saw down the gun’s barrel. In refusing to dismiss the case, the court stated that “[t]he intervening or superseding act of a third party, . . . including a third-party's intentionally tortious or criminal conduct[,] does not absolve a defendant from responsibility if the third-party's conduct is reasonably and generally foreseeable.” The facts were different here in some respects—the Columbine shooters were under-age, and notably, they bought their supplies in person, rather than online. But that does not explain how two federal district courts in Colorado ended up selecting and applying two different standards for evaluating the defendant's duty.

But it's even more different than that. Even with this standard -- which many disagree with -- there still needs to be "conduct" that is "reasonably and generally foreseeable." And that's not the case here that it is "reasonably and generally foreseeable" that because data is encrypted that people will be at more risk. In all these years, the FBI still can't come up with a single example where such encryption was a real problem. It would be basically impossible to argue that this is a foreseeable "problem," especially when weighed against the very real and very present problem of people trying to hack into your device and get your data.

In the second in the series, Bedell and Wittes go even further in looking at whether or not Apple could be found to have provided material support to terrorists thanks to encryption. If this sounds vaguely familiar, remember a similarly ridiculous claim not to long ago from a music industry lawyer and a DOJ official that YouTube and Twitter could be charged with material support for terrorism because ISIS used both platforms.

Bedell and Wittes concoct a scenario in which a court might argue that providing a phone that can encrypt a terrorist's data, opens the company up to liability:

In our scenario, a plaintiff might argue that the material support was either the provision of the cell phone itself, or the provision of the encrypted messaging services that are native on it. Thus, if a jury could find that providing terrorists with encrypted communications services is just asking for trouble, then plaintiffs would have satisfied the first element of the definition of international terrorism in § 2331, a necessary step for making a case for liability under § 2333.

Of course, this is wiped out pretty quickly because that law requires intent. The authors note that this would "pose a challenge" to any plaintiff "as it would appear to be difficult, if not impossible, to prove that Apple intended to intimidate civilians or threaten governments by selling someone an iPhone..."

You think?

But, our intrepid NSA apologists still dig deeper to see if they can come up with a legal theory that will actually work:

But again, courts have handled this question in ways that make it feasible for a plaintiff to succeed on this point against Apple. For example, when the judge presiding over the Arab Bank case considered and denied the bank’s motion to dismiss, he shifted the analysis of intimidation and coercion (as well as the question of the violent act and the broken criminal law) from the defendant in the case to the group receiving the assistance. The question for the jury was thus whether the bank was secondarily, rather than primarily, liable for the injuries. The issue was not whether Arab Bank was trying to intimidate civilians or threaten governments. It was whether Hamas was trying to do this, and whether Arab Bank was knowingly helping Hamas.

Judge Posner’s opinion in Boim takes a different route to the same result. Instead of requiring a demonstration of actual intent to coerce or intimidate civilians or a government, Judge Posner essentially permits the inference that when terrorist attacks are a “foreseeable consequence” of providing support, an organization or individual knowingly providing that support can be understood to have intended those consequences. Because Judge Posner concludes that Congress created an intentional tort, § 2333 in his reading requires the plaintiff to prove that the defendant knew it was supporting a terrorist or terrorist organization, or at least that it was deliberately indifferent to that fact. In other words, the terrorist attack must be a foreseeable consequence of the specific act of support, rather than just a general risk of providing a good or service.

But even under those standards, it's hard to see how Apple could possibly be liable for material support. It's just selling an iPhone and doing so in a way that -- for the vast majority of its customers -- is better protecting their privacy and data. It would take an extremely twisted mind and argument to turn that into somehow "knowingly" helping terrorists or creating a "foreseeable consequence." At least the authors admit that much.

But why stop there? They then say that Apple could still be liable after the government asks them to decrypt messages. If Apple doesn't magically stop the user in particular from encrypting messages, then, they claim, Apple could be shown to be "knowingly" supporting terrorism.

The trouble for Apple is that our story does not end with the sale of the phone to the person who turns out later to be an ISIS recruit. There is an intermediate step in the story, a step at which Apple’s knowledge dramatically increases, and its conduct arguably comes to look much more like that of someone who—as Posner explains—is recklessly indifferent to the consequences of his actions and thus carries liability for the foreseeable consequences of the aid he gives a bad guy.

That is the point at which the government serves Apple with a warrant—either a Title III warrant or a FISA warrant. In either case, the warrant is issued by a judge and puts Apple on notice that there is probable cause to believe the individual under investigation is engaged in criminal activity or activity of interest for national security reasons and is using Apple’s services and products to help further his aims. Apple, quite reasonably given its technical architecture, informs the FBI at this point that it cannot comply in any useful way with the warrant as to communications content. It can only provide the metadata associated with the communications. But it continues to provide service to the individual in question.

But all of this, once again, assumes an impossibility: that once out of its hands, Apple can somehow stop the end user from using the encryption on their phone.

This is the mother of all stretches in terms of legal theories. And, throughout it all, neither Bedell nor Wittes even seems to recognize that stronger encryption protects the end user. It's like it doesn't even enter their minds that there's a reason why Apple is providing encryption that isn't "to help people hide from the government." It's not about government snooping. It's about anyone snooping. The other cases they cite are not like that at all. These arguments, even as thin as they are, only make sense if Apple's move to encryption doesn't really have widespread value for basically the entire population. You don't sue Toyota for "material support for terrorism" just because a terrorist uses a Toyota to make a car bomb. Yet, Wittes and Bedell are somehow trying to make the argument that Apple is liable for better protecting you, just because in some instances it might also help "bad" people. That's a ridiculous legal theory that barely deserves to be laughed at, let alone a multi-part analysis of how it "might work."

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]>this-is-wronghttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150731/07081631810Fri, 10 Jan 2014 00:03:46 PSTHarvesting Waste Plastic In Emerging Economies As A Currency, To Reduce Pollution And Improve LivesGlyn Moodyhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140108/12050425804/harvesting-waste-plastic-emerging-economies-as-currency-to-reduce-pollution-improve-lives.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140108/12050425804/harvesting-waste-plastic-emerging-economies-as-currency-to-reduce-pollution-improve-lives.shtmlIzabella Kaminska. It's called Plastic Bank, and its core idea is to address the growing problem of plastic waste on the land and in the world's oceans and rivers, especially in poorer countries. But along the way, it might achieve much more. Here's the idea:

The Plastic Bank is setting up plastic repurposing centers around the world, where there's an abundance of both waste plastic and poverty.

We are empowering people to harvest plastics as a currency they can exchange for tools, household items, parts & 3D printing.

Our mission is to remove plastic waste from the land, oceans and waterways while helping people ascend from poverty and transition into entrepreneurship.

The exchange process for our recycled "Social Plastic" improves the life of a disadvantaged person while cleaning our planet.

Our goal is to lead the movement towards worldwide demand for the use of Social Plastic in everyday products. The higher the worldwide demand becomes, the higher the reward will be for harvesting Social Plastic.

Sounds too good to be true? Maybe it is -- it's evidently the early days for the project, so perhaps turning what seems a clever approach into a viable endeavor might prove to be difficult or even impossible. Still, it's good to see people daring to think big in this way, and working on things that matter -- rather than just launching another social network or iPhone app....

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]>nothing-if-not-ambitioushttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140108/12050425804Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:08:43 PSTEducation Through Games, Or How SimCity Finally Became UsefulTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131112/09512025215/education-through-games-how-simcity-finally-became-useful.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131112/09512025215/education-through-games-how-simcity-finally-became-useful.shtml
Someone once told me that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. I personally always wondered whether you should then expect life to give you vodka to put into said lemonade, but that's besides the point. We all know that the SimCity roll out was an unmitigated disaster the likes of which had never been seen (if gaming blogs were your reference point, anyway). Fortunately, we have some very talented lemonade-makers in this country that are turning the game into a useful teaching tool for children.

Glasslab Games has worked with EA to make a modded version of the commercial game, called SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge. While the primary use of the mod is to teach children about the dangers and solutions to citizens making everything smell like battery acid, a wonderful secondary use is to track how children apply what they've learned to problem-solving. The game also teaches logic-application beyond the pollution problem.

One neat change that's been made is the addition of a number of 10-minute challenges to the game. An example given in this Fast Company report is "Can you use fewer bus stops to get all the kids to school?", and at the conclusion of each everyone gets feedback on what they did right and what they did wrong.

Now, I realize that we've all been told that video games have no part on a child's life beyond simply making them want to go on murder rampages or eschew the providence of playing sports, but it's very nice to see some forward-thinking teachers applying some fun technology as a teaching method. It's a far cry from the days when I went to school, when I was introduced to educational programs like The Oregon Trail, through which I learned how to shoot every animal I ever met, or the original SimCity, where I learned how fun it is to unleash tornadoes on an unsuspecting population.

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100903/10032410893Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:05:00 PSTUS Embassy Accidentally Calls Beijing's Pollution 'Crazy Bad'Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101123/04445111985/us-embassy-accidentally-calls-beijings-pollution-crazy-bad.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101123/04445111985/us-embassy-accidentally-calls-beijings-pollution-crazy-bad.shtml@beijingair for some time, which automatically generates tweets describing the pollution conditions in Beijing, reporting the specifics, and a description, such as "Very Unhealthy" or "Hazardous." However, at some point last week, the system blew a bit of a gasket and reported that the pollution level in Beijing was "crazy bad." US officials apparently took down the tweet and apologized, with people assuming that the language was a "joke embedded in the embassy's monitoring program and triggered by a reading that was off the normal scale."

While the US removed it to avoid diplomatic issues, apparently, people in Beijing who saw it, appreciated it:

Several residents said "crazy bad" was refreshingly frank, particularly given the reluctance of Chinese officials to disclose real-time pollution data or any measurements of ozone or PM2.5 particulate matter.

US embassy spokesman, Richard Buangan, said the "crazy bad" term was a mistake that has been corrected. "It was an inadvertent humorous moment," he said. "We thought it might blow up in our faces. But looking at the Twitter feed, we are seen as heroes."

Never underestimate how refreshing a bit of honesty can be coming out of political circles.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]>truth-in-advertisinghttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101123/04445111985Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:39:00 PDTFile Sharing Is Not Pollution, And You Don't Need An ISP 'Tax' To Deal With ItMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100715/01280010225.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100715/01280010225.shtmlwe've published here. While there are plenty of things I agree with him about, there are still many points on which we disagree. His most recent paper, advocating a mandatory ISP fee for file sharing (pdf) is a point where we completely disagree. Page's paper is getting some attention, and he presented it at the same event where Peter Jenner just called for a blanket license as well. But I fear that Page's paper, while it digs into some economic concepts, includes a few mistaken assumptions that drives the entire paper offline (though, in fairness to Page, he clearly states that for you to accept his thesis, you need to accept his assumptions).

The key assumption in the paper is the idea that file sharing creates a "negative spillover." He's basically saying that file sharing is pollution -- creating a negative impact where the cost is borne by different parties than those responsible for the problem. Such situations are cases where there is a "market failure." In theory (and there are some important recent challenges to some aspects of this theory), if the costs are not borne by those creating them, then it could create an inefficient outcome, potentially requiring some sort of intervention, either in the form of regulation or voluntary restraint. But, you have to be very careful in what you consider "pollution." After all, one could argue that the creation of, say, email represented "negative spillovers" for the makers of fax machines. After all, it created a "negative impact" on fax machine makers, borne by a different party than those who created it (internet folks). But, of course, that's ridiculous. That's just innovation and competition at work.

And, the claim of "negative spillovers" really doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Normal pollution generally involves companies doing the polluting and the public bearing the costs, in some manner. But that's not the situation with file sharing at all. The public isn't being harmed at all. In fact, they're better off. And, according to Page's own research, there's no evidence that musicians are worse off either. Also, it's not like the amount of music being created is going down. It's actually going way up. The only "harm" being done is to a few companies that make up the recording industry. That really doesn't sound like pollution. It sounds like competition and innovation. We should never mistake a more efficient market for pollution, but I fear that's what Page is doing here.

Page's report does suggest one other area where there might be some pollution: in the broadband networks. This is the somewhat ingenious part of the argument. He's effectively making the argument that the pollution is that more file sharing will clog broadband networks, so it's actually in the best interests of the ISPs to "tax" the behavior to decrease the clogging. ISPs have long resisted calls for any sort of blanket licensing, but they've also talked up supposed claims of "clogged" broadband pipes from too much traffic -- usually in attempts to fight calls for net neutrality. So by saying that such a tax would decrease congestion in the networks, Page has sort of caught the ISPs at their own game, and given them a "solution" to the problem. The only issue? The "problem" of network congestion is more or less a myth, used mainly by lobbyists to ward off net neutrality legislation. The broadband providers don't really have a congestion problem, and a music tax isn't going to help solve this non-existent problem anyway.

Again, to be fair, Page more or less admits this in a paragraph towards the end:

We want to make it clear that neither of the
above-mentioned options could be considered without accepting that
some sort of market failure has occurred and that in consequence some
form of regulation is required, and that regulation should seek to put
incentives and structures in place so that a market-based solution to the
value of media on networks can evolve.

But, of course, most people will miss that paragraph and won't necessarily consider the assumptions being made.

I also think that the paper doesn't recognize the inefficiencies and economic costs created by blanket licensing/collective licensing regimes (though, to be fair, that wasn't the focus of the paper at all).

Either way, I chatted briefly with Page while writing this up, and he pointed out that the paper is focused specifically on the realities of the UK market under the Digital Economy Act, and that it shouldn't be generalized for other markets -- which, again, is a fair statement, though I'm not sure it changes any of the economic assumption questions (and, also could make the paper itself obsolete if the DEA is repealed, as some still believe will happen). Either way, we're going to try to find some time in the near future to have a more thorough discussion/Q&A on the topic and see if we can dig into some of those assumptions.